The year the music died?

Image credit: christhebarker

2016 will probably go down as one of those years where sad news overshadowed the good – certainly that was true for me both in personal terms, which I won’t cover here, but also the seemingly relentless march of famous icons being taken by the grim reaper.  Just as we were coming to terms with Lemmy passing away at the end of 2015, in 2016 we’d be constantly reminded by social media of a glittering parade of cultural icons shuffling from this mortal coil.

David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Jimmy Bain, Terry Wogan, Harper Lee, Frank Kelly, George Martin, Keith Emerson, Frank Sinatra Jr, Paul Daniels, Ronnie Corbett, David Gest, Victoria Wood, Lonnie Mack, Prince, John Berry, Nick Menza, Muhammad Ali, Henry McCullough, Anton Yelchin, Caroline Aherne, Kenny Baker, Dalian Atkinson, Gene Wilder, Pete Burns, Leonard Cohen, Andrew Sachs, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rick Parfitt, George Michael, Liz Smith, Richard Adams, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

That’s not an exhaustive list, I’m sure, but that’s not really what I wanted this blog post to be about – but you can’t really do a review of the year without mentioning the elephant in the room.  As with seemingly most things these days it caused ruckuses on Facebook with folk taking to social media to express their sadness whilst others get irked at seeming over-emotionalness.  Certainly there’s a lot in that list who whilst I’ve never met have had huge influences over my life, and I felt genuine sadness at them moving on – some seemingly far too early, others having reached a ripe of age.

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Freeborn Al / 30th December 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Alice? Who the Wolf is Alice?

IMG_3111Often my gig-going is centred around the very familiar, it made a nice change tonight to go to a gig almost entirely blind.  I’d booked a ticket to see Wolf Alice at Rock City back in October at my brother’s suggestion – and entirely forgotten about it until I glanced at my calendar on Tuesday evening after work.  A text to my brother enquired as to whether he’d got the tickets, he replied saying he didn’t think I was coming – a search of my emails revealed an e-ticket.  Two e-tickets in fact.  Oops!

With Ella down south Rich was able to get my ticket re-homed with Simon, a friend of Ed’s who was also coming to the gig.  Perhaps just as excitingly, we decided to pop to Annie’s Burger Shack before the gig – I opted for the current special on offer, the Cannonball – it was delicious.  I love Annie’s.  Annie came to the UK pursuing music, but found fame for her imaginative music-themed burgers, initially served in The Old Angel, then The Navigation Inn and finally in her own extremely popular restaurant – a real characterful success story.

IMG_3110After eating we waddled up to Rock City deciding to find a spot on the sidelines rather than in the mosh pit – it was pretty much a sell-out, quite a feat on a Wednesday night.  We found a good spot on the elevated area to the left of the stage and decided not to move from there for the evening – it seemed a bit strange to be on the sidelines at a gig but I wasn’t keen on the idea of being smashed around the very lively (even for the support acts) mosh pit whilst quite so full of burger!

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Freeborn Al / 24th March 2016 / Band, Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments